Changing the Past, Changes the Future
by I'mtheonlyone
Summary: A future Justin comes back in time and changes the past because he can't stand his future without Alex. One-shot. set during Future Harper.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own WOWP.

**Changing the Past, Changes the Future**

Future Harper sighed with relief as the last two of the Russo siblings departed. Taking a few moments she looked around to really make sure that they were gone before she spoke. "Okay they're gone now. You can come out." She said expecting her guest to step out of the back room but instead she screamed as he materialized beside her. No matter how many years she knew wizards she never could get used to them popping in around her. She turned to him wanting to shout at him, tell him that he shouldn't sneak up on a girl, but the depressing image of him stopped her fiery temper from getting quite so fiery that she would actually yell at him. He was thin and gaunt, partly from not taking care of himself, his hair a long tangled mess around his head. A patch covered his right eye but did not completely obscure the long pink scars running down his cheek . All of his weight was shifted to his left side. His right leg had been broken so many times it had been nearly irreparable through mortal medicine. "Could you not do all that popping around me," she said "You know It makes me nervous!" The squeakiness of her voice confirmed her words.

"I wasn't popping." He told her. "I was watching. I used the invisibility spell" he said simply. He didn't need to explain. She already knew the reason why he would spy.

"Justin, I know you miss her but wouldn't you be the first one to say to me that you can't interfere with the past." she lectured

Justin grunted at her. It wasn't an acknowledgment. It was really just a noise he made sometimes when he was trying to block out things that he didn't want to hear. "Look Harper, I'm the one that told you not to interfere with the past. So I think I already know that changing the past, changes the future. That doing that could cause irrevocable damages. So I don't need a lecture from you about the butterfly effect or any other theory about time travel." He said bitterly glaring at her with one cold gray eye.

His gaze pierced her making her feel uncomfortable and not In the soft fluttery way that used to give her excitement when they were both teenagers. His eye had turned dull, the light that once shined in it nearly extinguished. How she missed the old Justin, the happy dorky Justin. The Justin who had been Alex's big brother. She turned away needing to not see him looking at her with that single dull angry eye.

It was time for her to go back to the future and Justin was here to take her. She made a show of gathering up a few belongings that she really didn't need, taking the time to compose herself. Fidgeting around she picked up items, put them back, then picked them up again. Going still when she heard his voice once more.

" She looked so beautiful." Justin said, the pain in his voice evident through its broken raspy quality.

A muffled cry fell from Harper's lips and tears filled her eyes, "She really did." she agreed whole-heartedly, wrapping her arms around herself in a feeble attempt at comfort. "And she left mad at me. The last time I get to see my best friend and she is furious with me!" The tears trickled down her face unchecked but then a slight smile also curved her mouth. In her time Alex was gone, dead at the age of twenty-four. It had been so amazing just to see her one last time, so young and vibrant, and although it made her incredibly sad she was thankful for the opportunity to get to reunite with a loved one in such a way.

Harper glanced over her shoulder to look at Justin. His hands were clenched so tight, his fists white and bloodless, his face a mask of blankness over turmoil. She couldn't even imagine what he was feeling right now. He still punished himself for not saving Alex. His scars and deformities a testament to his anguish. He could easily heal himself perfectly but he refused. He seemed to think that he deserved to suffer but she couldn't for the life of her reason out why he blamed himself so much.

Turning back away from him she walked towards her closet. She had prepared a bag for when she had to leave. It was in the back shoved behind some boxes of blank ceramic plates. It took a good four minutes for her to get it dislodged from it's place jammed between a shark costume and a crate of ceramic glaze but when she turned back toward Justin and called out. "Okay, I'm ready to go n-" she stopped mid-word looking around frantically. He was gone.

"Justin!" she shouted not sure if he was really gone. Maybe he was in invisible mode again. "Justin!" she waited a few minutes before plopping down on her suitcase and sighing. Leave it to a Russo to tell you not to break a rule then go rush out to do it themselves, especially Justin. A huge grin stretched across her face though, because she knew by the end of the day the Alex in their future would be alive again. Justin would accept no other possibilities.

* * *

><p>Justin grinned as walked home, he had seen Alex pick up the book. "Mission accomplished! Justin Russo the world's first future-naut returns home victoriously after completing his appointed task." he mumbled to himself as he walked through the park oblivious to his surroundings. He was so caught up in his little fantasy world it took him several seconds to notice someone had grabbed him by the arm bringing him to a jarring halt before yanking him into a secluded grove of evergreens.<p>

His entire body stiffened when he got a look at the man who had stopped him. His wiry frame and unkempt appearance screamed homeless but what really worried him was his gaze. The one eye he could see, it looked so familiar and bewildering because he did see it everyday. Whenever he looked in the mirror he saw that eye looking back at him but somehow it had changed in a way that was unsettling. It scared him.

Future Justin looked at his younger self. It was so strange seeing himself that way again. It seemed like several lifetimes since he had been that young and idyllic, the world had been a horrible place for a very long time to him. He reached out yanking the youth's half sunglass off of his face feeling disturbed at the image of his younger self in them. He tossed them into a jogger's path before Present Justin had time to object.

"Hey!" Justin shouted in irritation glaring at the man for a full ten seconds before smacking a hand over his eye. "My cornea!"

Future Justin rolled his eyes and barked at the his younger self. "Look kid I don't have much time. I have to talk to you. It will only take a few minutes but it's really serious so I need you to listen carefully. Okay?" he spoke firmly and briskly not pausing for a single moment to see if the facts assimilated.

Justin started to nod. He figured he had time and if this guy wasn't going to try to take his wallet, he could at the very least listen to his crazy ramblings for a while but the man never even paused to get his consent, his words barreling out at him at a speed that was hard to keep up with.

Future Justin ticked through a list in his head, one he had made through all those sleepless nights he spent staring at the ceiling and thinking. Thinking of everything he should have been, every thing he should have done to protect Alex. "First of all, you need to start training. Magic and school aren't everything. You need to be more agile, stronger. Now, if I remember correctly you aren't to far off from being promoted to independent wizard studies. I know you were planning on studying wizard medicine but you need to do monster hunting instead. Learn everything you can about werewolves." he pulled a gun out of his jacket and pushed it into the teenager's hands. "And keep this ready. Don't for a second, trust that fucker! You'll know him when you see him. You can't keep him away from her but if he crosses the line kill him. Kill him before he kills her." his eye watered as he prepared himself to give out the last of his instructions.

There was an image in his head, it haunted him in his sleep. Alex in his arms, smiling at him, kissing him, happiness and excitement shining in her eyes. They had, had one night together and god willing once he told himself this last thing the memory would fade out. It would cease to exist and then Alex would be alive again.

Justin's eyes widened in shock and his hands trembled barely keeping a grip on the cold steel of the gun the stranger had just shoved into his grasp. It was a little surprising realizing this guy knew about wizards, magic, and apparently werewolves. It was even more surprising that he knew actual personal information, like how he had been planning on studying wizard medicine, then ten times more surprising being handed a gun from this strange guy. He had a very small sense of what was going on but he didn't want to believe it. He studied the thin face, picked out his nose and mouth among the wasted features. He couldn't deny it. This strange gnarled man was himself. What could have happened to cause him to change so much?

"And one last thing, kid. This is the most important of them all. You can never, in no shape or form ever, Tell your sister you are in love with her. Don't even hint at it" he added the final order, his chest feeling tight with suppressed emotion.

Justin's face reddened. He wanted to scream kick and shout. He wanted to deny it but he wasn't stupid. He knew who this guy was and he knew that he couldn't lie to him. They both knew the truth because they were both Justin Russo. He had never intended on telling her in the first place but it made him wonder. Why would he come back from the future to tell himself this. "Why?" he asked narrowing his eyes at the future him.

Future Justin gave his counterpart an incredulous look. "Really? You need me to give you a reason not to tell your very own sister that you are in love with her? The fact that she is one of your closest blood relatives isn't a big enough deterrent for you?" he asked sarcastically.

Justin rolled his eyes. "Why don't you tell me? It obviously wasn't a big enough deterrent for you other wise you wouldn't have had to come back to tell me not to do it." he accused his older self.

Future Justin sighed in resignation, "So you figured it out, kid?" he asked already sure of the answer.

Justin snorted at the question. "You of all people should know I'm not stupid! Besides you weren't really very subtle at all. You could have fooled Max, possibly Alex, but not me. Now, how and why did you… um? I… tell Alex that I… uh? We are in love with her?" Justin questioned, stumbling over which words he should use.

Future Justin pinched the bridge of his nose feeling a head ache coming on. He purposely used the word 'you' instead of 'I', feeling the need to separate himself from what he was saying or else he might break "It happens a few weeks from now. You accidentally take an emotion enhancer in potions class. You get so over whelmed by your feelings that you lock yourself in your room but that isn't enough. You feel bursting, ready to overflow with your desire to be with Alex so you pour out all your feelings on paper. It helps you get through the effects of the potion and you're fine again but then a few days later Dean decides to move away with his mother. Alex is feeling depressed that her boyfriend would actually voluntarily leave her. That's when you slip up. You want to cheer her up so you take your letter with all your feeling in it and sign Dean's name on it, charm the paper to make it look like his handwriting, and drop it in the mail. The only problem is she isn't fooled for a second. She knows Dean couldn't have written it just by reading it and it doesn't take much time for her to realize it's you." His temples are pounding now, thinking back on his mistakes. He had been so stupid to think that plan would have worked but deep down he had just wanted her to know that somebody loved her that much, even if she thought it was someone else.

Justin waited for the older version of himself to continue but after a few seconds of silence he became impatient. A ball of worry built up in his stomach, bouncing around, making him nauseous. "What happens? Does she hate me? Never want to see me again? Does our family disown me?" he asked frantically, panic buzzing in every molecule of his body.

"She doesn't really do anything. She thinks it's some type of lame practical joke, like when she tricked you into thinking that the lunch lady was sending you love letters. She's angry for a few days, does an elaborate prank then acts like it never happened." he says simply.

Justin doesn't know whether to be relieved of disappointed at the answer. His nausea has settled but is replaced by a slight hollow aching in his heart. "Wait? So why are you telling me this then, if it doesn't really matter? She knows I wrote the letter but she doesn't believe it's true? How is this a problem?" he asked genuinely confused.

"It doesn't have an immediate effect, but it does change things. It opens a door inside of her. All the sudden she's looking at you differently, analyzing your behavior towards her, she starts thinking about what it would be like to be with you, while at the same time telling herself that it would be the last thing she could ever want. But its there in the back of her mind always and it's what causes her death." Future Justin says grimly swallowing the huge lump of guilt in his throat. He wants to vomit just saying it out loud.

He feels light headed and weak as if all the blood in his body is draining from him at an alarming rate. He couldn't have heard right. "D-death? Al-Alex? But how?" He stutters out, barely able to form the words.

Future Justin's single eye glazed over with moisture, the hardness in him seeming to have cracked and crumbled away to nothingness, exposing his vulnerable center. "It took her years, so many years, but she finally realized she wanted to be with me, too. She was already with someone else. They were engaged but she dumped him and came to me, told me she loved me. I of course said it back. We were both so happy. We stayed up all night talking, planning our future. At dawn she fell asleep in my arms. Life was perfect for a total of twelve hours." he paused for a moment, needing to hold that memory just a little bit longer because he needed to brace himself for what he had to say next.

"Someone else wasn't very happy with us though. The fiancé, he had a temper, very possessive. He tracked her down by scent alone. We were both sleeping when he knocked down the door. He grabbed me, ripped into my face with his claws." he moved his hair and eye patch aside to show the mottled area of skin where his eye should have been. "I tried to fight him but it was no use. I didn't have my powers anymore and I was no match for his supernatural animal strength. All I could do was lay there and wait to die, listening to my bones crunching and his snarls. Then the worst possible thing happened. She tried to stop him. He tore her to shreds while I lay helpless in a pool of my own blood." he was white as a sheet now, his body shaking uncontrollably at the memory. Swallowing desperately he just managed to hold in the meager contents of his stomach.

"I woke up two weeks later in the hospital hoping it was all a nightmare but my magic was restored and that could only mean one thing. Alex was gone. I wanted to die but I didn't. I stayed alive. I hunted that fucking wolf down and I killed him, and brought him back to life, and killed him again. So many times, until he was just a stain on a patch of grass." feeling drained from the emotional upheaval, his crooked legs aching so bad, he stumbled before slowly loweringing himself to sit on the ground. "That's why you can never let her know and that's why you have to be prepared. That gun doesn't shoot bullets. It's filled with plastic cartridges of wolfs bane extract. Perfectly harmless to humans and wizards but it will kill a wolf. Don't use it unless you absolutely have to. Killing him might be worth ending up in prison but it's not preferable."

Justin crouched down to look himself in the eye. "She loves me back. Why do I have to give her up? Couldn't I just tell her now? If I tell her I love her now maybe she won't even start dating that other guy." he said hopefully.

Future Justin shook his head. "No. It took her years to come to terms with her feelings. If you tell her now who knows what would happen. Are you willing to take the risk of letting her die again?" he asked steel in his tone.

A chill went up his spine and he shook his head frantically. "No!" Justin shouted.

"Then you have to let her go." Future Justin said softly. He got to this feet pulling out his wand. "I got to go kid. Remember what I said and just in case you forget why you are doing this… take this" he pulled off his eye patch tossing it in the teenager's direction.

Justin grabbed the tiny bit of fabric as it hit him in the chest. His future self was gone and he looked down at the reminder in his hand. He would never forget. If he had to sacrifice his feelings for his sister's life he would do it gladly because just knowing she existed made his life worth living.

Future Justin limped down the street to the abandoned paint your plate warehouse. Getting annoyed with the pointing and looks he was getting, he pulled a spare eye patch out of his front coat pocket and slipped it on. He needed to bring Harper back to the future. Her past-work visa was expiring today so she had to be back to her correct time before midnight or face penalties. He flashed himself inside rather than knocking but found the building dark and empty. A dizziness swirled through his head and he braced himself for a few minutes.

It had been a hard day for him and he didn't feel like tracking her down. It was early afternoon so he decided to go home to rest for a few hours before coming back to get her. He was in his shabby two room apartment with minimal effort, laying down on a futon that served the purpose of both sofa and bed. He was asleep the moment his eye closed and as he slept the world shifted around him.

* * *

><p>Justin woke up and found himself in a very unfamiliar place. He was in a velvet draped bed surrounded by medium purple walls with deep wine colored curtains covering one side, holding back the majority of the light coming in through the windows. It definitely wasn't the gray box of an apartment he lived in. He looked to the curtains and made a small hand gesture. They flew open immediately letting in the faint light of the rising sun. He sighed closing his eyes, it hadn't worked. He still had his powers. Tears built up, rolling out from under his eye lid and trickling down his face to wet the pillow. A door slammed and he sat up in bed, his eyes shooting open. Crap! He really hoped this was his house because someone's footsteps were headed in his direction.<p>

She stepped into the room and he couldn't breathe. It was dark but he could pick out that profile anywhere. He closed his eye for a moment, rubbed it all the while chanting quietly. "please, please, please don't be a mirage…" his eye opened again at the sound of her annoyed voice.

"Oh no, you are not getting up! Today is your day off! You promised we would sleep in and we are, even if I have to tie you down!" Alex waved her hand and the curtains swiped back closed. She left the bed for thirty seconds to pee and what did she find? Her brother trying to get up at the crack of dawn as usual. She hopped up on the bed pausing a moment at what she saw. "Oh my god! Why are you wearing that stupid thing? I swear! How many times can one man scratch his cornea?" the whined with exasperation, yanking the eye patch off his face.

His hand reflexively snapped up to cover his deformity but instead of finding a rough crater of scars, there was the smooth soft skin of his eyelid. His hands ran over his body finding it firm, toned and practically flawless. Apparently his plan had worked, although he really didn't understand why he was still wearing his eye patch, but only had a pair of silk boxers on under the covers. He couldn't really understand the silk boxers at all. They didn't seem like something he would even buy, let alone wear.

Alex was crawling under the blankets and fluffing her pillow when he stopped her, a myriad of questions running through his head. The first of them. "Alex, what are you doing here?"

She looked at him like he was crazy. "I'm going back to sleep…" she said slowly, as if she were talking to an imbecile.

"But, why are you sleeping here?" he asked.

She paused mid pillow fluff and stared at him. "Justin, this is my house, my bed. Why wouldn't I sleep here?" she asked, growing concerned with the way he was acting.

"Oh!" he said nodding for a few seconds before questioning her again. "Okay, so this is your bed. What am I doing here then?" he asked trying to work out what was going on.

Alex was worried now, leaning over him to turn on the lamp sitting on the night stand. Her hands went in his hair feeling his scalp checking for lumps. "Oh god! Did you fall out of bed and hit your head or something? Did you get exposed to some weird potion or chemical at work? I don't care if Crumbs is our former teacher and a family friend, if something is wrong with you I'm suing him! I'll take every thing he owns, even the beard off his face!"

"What?" he was even more confused now than when they started talking.

Alex babbled on in panic. "You're Justin. I'm Alex, your girlfriend! We live at one twenty-four-"

He cut her off before she could finish. "Wait! Girlfriend? Don't you mean sister?" he asked. There was no way that him going back in time had changed that fact.

"Oh shit!" she said with irritation. "If you were going to forget something why not that! I do not want to spend another six months gently coaxing you into being my boyfriend, with you constantly telling me that 'something bad' will happen if we are together. I never want to hear the words 'something' and 'bad' together in the same sentence again!" she shouted getting ready to hop back out of bed and grab her wand to call up Professor Crumbs and give him a piece of her mind.

Justin stopped her. "Wait! Don't go. I haven't been this close to you in so long. Just stay." he said pulling her into his arms, letting his body curl around hers. She calmed noticeably wrapping her arms around his shoulders burying her face in his neck.

"What happened to Mason? I thought you two were going to be 'together forever'." he said repeating the words she had said several times, with disgust in his voice.

Alex moaned. "Oh God! Don't remind me! I'm so glad he's locked away now. It really scared me when he started stalking me after we broke up! That's why I moved in with you. I guess he kind of drove us together in that way. We never were very sibling like but it became even more apparent when it was just the two of us living alone together." she said talking more to herself than him.

He felt a little at ease knowing Mason was detained somewhere but he had to know the details. He couldn't blindly assume they were safe now. "Locked away where? How long has it been? What did he do?"

Alex closed her eyes, bracing herself before she began to speak. "I broke up with him about two months after high school graduation. He was always possessive and a little weird but he just went crazy. He wanted me to stop seeing our family and Harper but he especially wanted to keep me away from you. He kept babbling about living in the forest, howling at the moon, hunting with the pack. I think he could sense that my feelings for you had always been more than a normal sister should feel for her brother. You were looking for a wizard to help you with your research, trying to find a renewable source of magical energy and I didn't want to be alone so I moved into your house and once I moved in I never wanted to leave. I ran off your girlfriend and decided I was going to stay with you forever. You of course were stubborn about it, but you didn't make me leave. We worked on your research. You created some type of synthetic substance. When it's charged with magic it multiplies the energy of it somehow. I don't know, you explained it to me but you know I tend to tune you out when you talk like that. The entire time Mason never stopped harassing me. At first he left dead animals outside my bedroom window. A cardnal with out a head, a gutted chipmunk, a possum that was ripped in half. I hid it all from you. I didn't want to worry you and I thought I could handle it. Then he started leaving threatening notes. He would show up every time you left the house which became more and more often. You had to meet with the wizard council a lot after you presented your discovery to them. It was about nine months after I broke up with him and he was even more obsessed than ever." she paused to catch her breath, her eyes seeming far away.

"One day I went out to get the mail. Our neighbor Chuck was mowing his lawn and he stopped to flirt with me. I had nothing better to do. It cheered me up. You kept on rebuffing my advances and it just made me feel good to have a guy notice me that way, so I flirted with him for about thirty minutes. I didn't even think about it. It was just a mild form of entertainment to me but two days later Chuck was reported missing and I found a blood splattered love letter from Mason under my pillow." the guilt still washed up inside of her when she thought about Chuck. She tried not to but sometimes it was inevitable.

"By then you had your magic generator up and running. Your powers were restored along with the majority of former wizards. You helped hunt Mason down. He had gone feral, was totally insane, living in the park, attacking tourists. They calcified him. He is literally a statue now, locked away in some wizard government warehouse. That was about twelve years ago." She sighed cuddling into him closer, needing the comfort of his body heat after rehashing that whole ordeal.

Justin was relieved. Mason was gone, Alex was his, somehow everything had miraculously worked out in his favor. He looked down at her face and chuckled happily. He had never seen Alex this old, but it was the most beautiful sight of his life. He leaned in pressing his lips to hers. He could kiss her whenever he wanted now, no holding back. "I love you, Alex." he moaned into her ear.

"That's more like it!" Alex giggled moving her mouth to line up with his again. She pecked his lips a few times before moving away. "but I probably should call Professor Crumbs. What ever new thing you two are working on has got your brain going wonky." she started to slide out of bed again but he pulled her back.

" No, we're sleeping in today, remember. Besides, it's just my brain hasn't caught up with the time/space continuum yet." he said nibbling on her ear.

"Wha..?" she said, confused but seriously starting to not care.

"I'll explain it later." he promised.

She curled into him and was soon dozing but Justin stayed awake a soft smile curving his lips as he watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. He had known that he wasn't supposed to do it, that it could have caused untold damages to the universe, that at this very moment he could have been in deep trouble for time tampering, but it had all been worth it because sometimes, if you were lucky, changing the past changes the future for the better.

**Author's Note: Hey everybody! I wrote this for a new community I started on livejournal. A community for fanwork dealing specifically with the episodes. It's call Jalexified. There will be a link in my profile. If you are a Jalex author, we really need more stories. please! Also i want everybody to check out the video I begged iheartdisney128 to make. It's awesome! There will be a link of that in my profile also!.**


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